Graphologist Claims Tumblety wrote the Lusk Letter

[Crystal]

All very interesting-The Lusk letter is either an different issue entirely, or the key to something cool-haven't decided which yet.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Hi Michael.

As I have said, the only evidence which might point to the Lusk letter being real is the inclusion of Eddowes kidney. Remove the kidney, so to speak, and the letter cannot be taken any more seriously than the thousands of other letters the authorities received. Anything beyond that is pure speculation and conjecture I’m afraid.

Having said that, however, it is apparent that the police took great interest in the letter and package at the time, although the medical opinion soon declared it to be a hoax. There is also a report out of New York that Inspector Byrnes of the NYPD had been sent a copy of a Ripper letter by the London police sometime late in 1889 that was “dated” “From Hell.” If correct this would seem to indicate the Lusk letter and that someone within the London police thought enough of its authenticity to have passed it on. Of course this doesn’t prove that it was real either.

Wolf.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Bright's Disease

The question of Bright’s Disease has become somewhat contentious. It was Major Henry Smith writing in 1910 who stated that the kidney that remained in Eddowes’ body and the Lusk kidney both showed signs of the disease. However, Dr. Sedgwick Saunders specifically states that both were healthy. Recently some non-medical authors have stated categorically that Eddowes showed no signs of Bright’s Disease but this is not correct. Dr. Gordon Brown’s autopsy report states that the kidney left in the body was “pale, bloodless, with a slight congestion at the base of the pyramid.” When I consulted a medical specialist on this matter he suggested that this description could indicate Bright’s disease but didn’t necessarily prove it. It could be indicative of some other disease but certainly one could not rule out Bright’s with the information we have at hand. In the end, there is some evidence that Eddowes was possibly suffering from Bright’s Disease but there is no credible evidence that the disease inflicted the kidney sent to Lusk.

Wolf.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Tumblety was born in or near Dublin sometime around 1830 – 1833. He came to the United States in June, 1847, and was therefore aged 14 to 17 years old when he arrived. I have never read any account of what his accent might have sounded like but there are at least two reports, one from New York the other from New Orleans, that he passed himself off as a wealthy English gentleman. Make of this what you will.

Of the profile posted by Christine:

1) We don’t know what kind of accent Tumblety had.
2, 3) We don’t know what kind of relationship he had with his mother or father.
4) Yes, he was an extrovert.
5) We don’t know that he had “extreme sexual anger.”
6) He was not bisexual but homosexual.
7) There is no evidence that he was violent anymore than the next man.
8) We don’t know that he had a fear of abandonment.
9) That he may have been only semiliterate seems unlikely but he certainly had no more than a grade school education.
10) He did not have a chronic illness that we know of.
11) He certainly was not unkempt, nondescript or dirty appearance, quite the opposite.

Wolf.

[Christine]

I shall relate what Ms. Dresbold has to say on these points.

1) The accent has been discussed.
2) She claims Tumblety's mother sent him to live with his brother when he was eleven.
3) The relationship with is father is unknown.
4) He was an extrovert.
5) Tumblety was married at one point, so depending on your definition of bisexual, he fits.
6) She considers his performing of abortions and various negative comments about women to be sexual anger.
7) This is a curious one--she considers charge of "indecent assault with force and arms" to be violence with a weapon, where everyone else considers it to be homosexual activity. I'm not sure it's known exactly what Tumblety did.
8) She cites some incidents from his life, such as staying with his sisters and his letters to Hall Caine. They don't seem to be to be strong evidence that he was more afraid of abandonment than average.
9) She says Tumblety attended "only a few years of grade school." She has some other quotes, but they seem to be to be about his lack of medical knowledge.
10) "Hospital records indicate that Tumblety suffered from chronic nephritis and 'valvular disease of the heart.'" That sounds pretty nebulous.
11) She quotes Clement R. Bennett, who ran into Tumblety in 1879. "He was looking shabby, careworn, lame, appeared to be living a dissolute and dissipated life, and was begging for a night's lodging." Bennett of course was contrasting this to Tumblety's usual famous overdressing. But I doubt if this applies to 1888.

Altogether, even if these claims about handwriting are true, you can see that it's pretty easy to stretch and shrink these sorts of definitions to apply to almost anyone. Everyone has a chronic health problem, if you let chronic be short enough and health problem be minor enough. Everyone fears abandonment. And so on and so forth.

[Howard Brown]

Excuse me for butting in,Christine:

You have this on the list in the post above:

"5) Tumblety was married at one point, so depending on your definition of bisexual, he fits.

There is no proof he was ever married. 5 will get you 10 he was strictly homosexual. There are no references to him even being intimate with women that have surfaced.

[Cap'n Jack]

Indeed there are, How, I posted them on your site some considerable time ago. Check the Tumblety threads.

[Christine]

Howard, feel free to butt in. I'm relating what Dresbold said, but aren't there stories about him being betrayed by a fiance in a way that turned him off to women forever? I don't have a source for the exact quotes.

Whatever Tumblety's martial status, definitions like "homosexual" and "bisexual" are very subjective. Many people who define themselves as homosexual have been married, or at least have had one heterosexual relationship. Plus the whole thing is sort of meaningless in a LV context because there was no such thing as gay dating or gay marriage and many gay people got married because that was the social expectation.

Plus, all this is based on the fact the both the Lusk writer and Tumblety have some lower loops in their letters that go left to right, as well as the more normal right to left. This doesn't prove the letters were by the same hand, and it certainly doesn't prove that the writers were bisexual. However if he were bisexual it at least increases the possibility that he might be the Ripper, since the usual belief is that the Ripper got some sort of sexual gratification out of the murders and thus is prima facie attracted to women.

[Cap'n Jack]

Tumblety was a British subject wasn't he?
Otherwise why would a British Ambassador have had him freed from an American jail?
Tumblety loved the ladies, and they loved him. Plenty of press reports show that. But he loved the boys too. Just like Thaw.
Expect a letter from Littlechild.

[Howard Brown]

Thanks Christine

but aren't there stories about him being betrayed by a fiance in a way that turned him off to women forever? I don't have a source for the exact quotes.

Thats a story that Sanford Conover a.k.a. Colonel Dunham, relates in regard to FT...but Tumbelty is never quoted saying that himself.

A.P... old bean...being a man who can be engaging with the ladies (see the New York World article that R.J. brought up a couple of years ago with the paen from some dowager) doesn't mean he was intimate in the sense I meant. It still remains to be proven he was intimate with women in a sexual sense.

Thanks for reminding me ...I beckoned ye to the 19th century Nervous Breakdown thread an hour ago.

[perrymason]

Thanks Christine

but aren't there stories about him being betrayed by a fiance in a way that turned him off to women forever? I don't have a source for the exact quotes.

Thats a story that Sanford Conover a.k.a. Colonel Dunham, relates in regard to FT...but Tumbelty is never quoted saying that himself.

A.P... old bean...being a man who can be engaging with the ladies (see the New York World article that R.J. brought up a couple of years ago with the paen from some dowager) doesn't mean he was intimate in the sense I meant. It still remains to be proven he was intimate with women in a sexual sense.

Thanks for reminding me ...I beckoned ye to the 19th century Nervous Breakdown thread an hour ago.

Hi Howard,

The Colonel that made that statement also claimed Dr T kept uteri in jars. The source alone can therefore be challenged.

Or... was he right about both stories?

Best regards Mr Brown.

[Howard Brown]

Dear Mike:

I think that there are 3 elements of the diatribe provided by Dunham which are usually used or examined the most by us towards "figuring out" Tumbelty...and I'm by no means a Tim Riordan or SPE on Tumbelty's past...but let me give it a shot.

1. The alleged misogyny Dunham claimed Tumbelty expressed towards women..or more importantly, all women or no specific sort of woman. Dunham did not ask why there weren't any prostitutes or women of any particular stripe present in the infamous gathering at Tumbelty's digs...just women,period. From this it could be assumed Tumbelty was misogynistic since he seems to lump them all together. We have,however, seen that he made friends with women during his life, which doesn't prove he didn't harbor some "secret" disdain for the distaff gender...but its evidence that for someone who abhorred women, he nevertheless had social,if not sexual, intercourse. Tumbelty's recitation of the poem written in praise to Tumbelty by the dowager which is within the New York World article ( Jan.?,1889) found by R.J. Palmer seems to be evidence of that.

2. The alleged uteri collection reference by Dunham is another example of one man and one man alone "confirming" this jar full of innards. Could it have existed? Certainly. Yet, in all the reports or stories written by young men who were intimate with him, socially and probably,if not definitely, sexually, there is no mention of these jars at all. One day,maybe one will up,Mike. Until then and since those who lived and traveled with him never mention the jar, I would hazard a guess that its untrue.

3. The third leg of the campaign ( as I see it ) to character- assassinate Tumbelty ( all three legs of the Dunham Diatribe are based on sexual issues,as we see...) was the alleged marriage that Dunham mentions...and no one else. Had Tumbelty been confronted on his alleged misogyny? You bet. The New York World article that Rajah found once again would have been the perfect place to drop that humdinger...that Mr. Pimple Creams had once been a husband. He didn't and I suspect its because like the other tottering legs of the Tumbelty-as-Bad Egg-concept...he never was.

One wonders if there are more examples in 19th century newspaper reports in which Dunham was featured where he did anything similar to someone else to what he did with Tumbelty and that we could research and examine that story. Tumbelty has young men coming out of the proverbial woodwork in the newspapers of the day,but not once is there an example of some woman being of interest to him in a sexual way.

Take it easy and see you later,Mike. I told you,I ain't Tim Riordan,but I tried.

HB

[perrymason]

That was an A-1 response to my post Howard, thank you.....I enjoyed reading that.

As my post indicated, Im uncommitted at this time.......but sound reasoning used there, Mr B.

My best regards as always Howard.

[D'Onston]

Graphology: Pseudoscience

Hey All, Have read the entire thread and wish to return to its original purpose: Graphology.

The following citations of recent research prove that Graphology is bunko! A legitimate Forensic Document Examiner would confine him/herself to the likelihood of two documents being penned by the same hand. All the other psychobabble is in the class with astrology.

CARLA DAZZI, LUIGI PEDRABISSI (2009) GRAPHOLOGY AND PERSONALITY: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON VALIDITY OF HANDWRITING ANALYSIS. Psychological Reports: Volume 105, Issue , pp. 1255-1268.
GRAPHOLOGY AND PERSONALITY: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON VALIDITY OF HANDWRITING ANALYSIS1
CARLA DAZZI, LUIGI PEDRABISSI
Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization University of Padua


Summary
The aim of the present work was to examine validity of the graphological method to assess personality traits. The results of two studies are described. In Study 1, the Big Five Questionnaire was administered to a sample of 101 university students who provided a sample of a handwritten text. Two graphologists were asked to detect the same dimensions and facets measured by the Big Five Questionnaire using a 9-point scale. Correlations between the Big Five Questionnaire and graphological evaluations did not confirm the capability of handwriting analysis to measure Big Five personality traits. Also, interrater reliability was very low. Study 2 (N = 102) was carried out using handwritten texts with autobiographical content for the graphological analysis. Two different graphologists and two laypersons were involved. No evidence was found to validate the graphological method as a measure of personality.

http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.105.3F.1255-1268

On the basis of meta-analytic findings, this article examines
and summarizes what 85 years of research in personnel psychology
has revealed about the validity of measures of 19 different
selection methods that can be used in making decisions about
hiring, training, and developmental assignments. In this sense,
this article is an expansion and updating of Hunter and Hunter
(1984). In addition, this article examines how well certain combinations
of these methods work. These 19 procedures do not
all work equally well; the research evidence indicates that some
work very well and some work very poorly. Measures of GMA
work very well, for example, and graphology does not work at
all. The cumulative findings show that the research knowledge
now available makes it possible for employers today to substantially
increase the productivity, output, and learning ability of
their workforces by using procedures that work well and by
avoiding those that do not. Finally, we look at the implications
of these research findings for the development of theories of job
performance.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Graphology+validity&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=ws

Should We Write Off Graphology?
1. Russell W. Driver2,
2. M. Ronald Buckley2,
3. Dwight D. Frink1
Article first published online: 3 APR 2007
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2389.1996.tb00062.x
International Journal of Selection and Assessment
Volume 4, Issue 2, pages 78–86, April 1996
• Abstract
The scientific study of graphology (handwriting analysis) has had a long history. Many practitioners believe that graphology is a valuable selection aid and use this technique in a selection context, and in some European countries it is quite well thought of. While a few articles have proposed that graphology is a valid and useful selection technique, the overwhelming results of well-controlled empirical studies have been that the technique has not demonstrated acceptable validity. A review of relevant literature regarding both theory and research indicates that, while the procedure may have an intuitive appeal, graphology should not be used in a selection context.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Graphology+validity&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=ws

Personality and Individual Differences
Volume 8, Issue 3, 1987, Pages 433-435
________________________________________


Notes and shorter communications
Graphology and personality: Another failure to validate graphological analysis

Adrian Furnham and Barrie Gunter
Department of Psychology, University College London, London WC1H 0AP, England
Received 24 February 1986.
Available online 28 May 2002.

Abstract
A group of 64 adults completed the EPQ and copied out a set text in their own handwriting. Independent coders (reliability 0.89) rated each sample of handwriting on 13 specific features which were correlated with the EPQ. Results showed few significant differences, once again questioning the validity of handwriting analysis.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Graphology+validity&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=ws

My apologies for the length of this post, but I felt it is necessary to put graphology in its rightful place!

All the best to all, Mike

P.S. I'm on the fence regarding the "From Hell" letter, but lean towards it being a hoax.

[fireskin]

If it was Tumblety, holy crap that "doctor" couldn't write a prescription to save his life. Even a fake doctor should spell better than that.

(goes to peruse her doctors handwriting now)